The Darling Turkish Strumpet

I'm thrilled to say that Taryn Fagerness, my foreign rights agent, has sold TURKISH rights to The Darling Strumpet! Somehow Turkey seems like a culture vastly different than Nell's England. But my father has just sent me a book called Aziyade by Pierre Loti, which he says has fascinated the Turks for many years. He visited Istanbul last year, and stayed at a hotel called Aziyade, on a street called Piyerloti - a corruption of the author's name! I haven't read the book yet, but the title character apparently has many points of similarity with Nell, and is based on a young woman with whom the author -- actually a 19th century French naval officer named Julian Viaud -- fell in love! I'll have to read it!